Wal-Mart Rations Rice, this is out of control...

WTF is going on, this is just getting out of control, I could just imagine what is next....looks like sushi prices are going to go through the roof just like pizza and bread did after wheat jumped.....




Wednesday, Apr. 23 2008
Wal-Mart Rations Rice, Warns of "Supply and Demand" Concerns



Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said on Wednesday that it would ration the amount of rice each customer can purchase because of recent “supply and demand trends.”

“We are limiting the sale of Jasmine, Basmati and Long Grain White Rices to four bags per member visit,” the company said in a statement. “This is effective immediately in all of our U.S. clubs, where quantity restrictions are allowed by law.”

Wal-Mart (WMT: 57.15, +0.60, +1.06%) is the first major grocer to limit the purchasing of a commodity because of the recent run up in prices. The company said it is not limiting the purchase of other basic food products like flour or oil.

The price of rice, which is the primary foodstuff for the majority of the human population around the world, rose to $894 a metric ton according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association. That’s compared to the $327.25 a ton average price in the same month last year.

In Chicago, the price of export-quality rice rose to $24.745 per 100 pounds on Tuesday.

The run up in price in rice is primarily related to poor harvests and countries curbing exports. Thailand, Asia’s largest exporter of rice, said it may curb exports.

The World Food Program called the recent run up in prices of rice and other basic commodities a “silent famine.”

Wal-Mart did not say when the rationing would end, but it was “working with our suppliers to address this matter to ensure we are in stock, and we are asking for our members' cooperation and patience.”

 

Do you have a link? This is insane. I need to send this article to a lot of people I know.

 

Here's one about Costco:

http://cbs5.com/wrapper_consumer/seenon/rice.shortage.rationing.2.705309.html

 

You might want to send them this one too........

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/fashion/06survival.html

Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism
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By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: April 6, 2008
THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

DUGOUT A father and daughter enter a Cold War bomb shelter.

ALIVE AND ALONE Will Smith stars in “I Am Legend” as a survivor of a man-made virus, walking New York’s desolate streets.
It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.

Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.

They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of “An Inconvenient Truth,” if not “Mad Max.”

“I’m not a gun-nut, camo-wearing skinhead. I don’t even hunt or fish,” said Bill Marcom, 53, a construction executive in Dallas.

Still, motivated by a belief that the credit crunch and a bursting housing bubble might spark widespread economic chaos — “the Greater Depression,” as he put it — Mr. Marcom began to take measures to prepare for the unknown over the last few years: buying old silver coins to use as currency; buying G.P.S. units, a satellite telephone and a hydroponic kit; and building a simple cabin in a remote West Texas desert.

“If all these planets line up and things do get really bad,” Mr. Marcom said, “those who have not prepared will be trapped in the city with thousands of other people needing food and propane and everything else.”

Interest in survivalism — in either its traditional hard-core version or a middle-class “lite” variation — functions as a leading economic indicator of social anxiety, preparedness experts said: It spikes at times of peril real (the post-Sept. 11 period) or imagined (the chaos that was supposed to follow the so-called Y2K computer bug in 2000).

At times, a degree of paranoia is officially sanctioned. In the 1950s, civil defense authorities encouraged people to build personal bomb shelters because of the nuclear threat. In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security encouraged Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal windows in case of biological or chemical attacks.

Now, however, the government, while still conducting business under a yellow terrorism alert, is no longer taking a lead role in encouraging preparedness. For some, this leaves a vacuum of reassurance, and plenty to worry about.

Esteemed economists debate whether the credit crisis could result in a complete meltdown of the financial system. A former vice president of the United States informs us that global warming could result in mass flooding, disease and starvation, perhaps even a new Ice Age.

“You just can’t help wonder if there’s a train wreck coming,” said David Anderson, 50, a database administrator in Colorado Springs who said he was moved by economic uncertainties and high energy prices, among other factors, to stockpile months’ worth of canned goods in his basement for his wife, his two young children and himself.

Popular culture also provides reinforcement, in books like “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy’s novel about a father and son journeying through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and films like “I Am Legend,” which stars Will Smith as a survivor of a man-made virus wandering the barren streets of New York.

Middle-class survivalists can also browse among a growing number of how-to books with titles like “Dare to Prepare!” a self-published work by Holly Drennan Deyo, or “When All Hell Breaks Loose” by Cody Lundin (Gibbs Smith, 2007), which instructs readers how to dispose of bodies and dine on rats and dogs in the event of disaster.

 

Probably not a bad idea to have a few weeks supply of food on hand, just in case.

 

Stock market is in complete denial. I am quite sure we will see a crash as bad as 87.

Complacency in the current environment is truly a marvel.

 

But Google and IBM beat earnings estimates so everything is great

 

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/...imits-sale-rice-supply-concerns_575879_7.html

this is without the ridiculous blackouts put by the original poster.

 

Go all in short. You will make a fortune.

 

I am and I will.